Water-skiing is a recreational activity that has been enjoyed worldwide for several decades. Several different types of water-skiing are commonly recognized and classically include, e.g., slalom, trick, and jumping. Recently, other categories of water-skiing have been developed as a result of the inception of new ski devices, such as the hydro slide and most recently the wakeboard. All of these types of water-skiing have some common components: the rider is towed by a boat and the rider is positioned on a device that displaces water as the boat tows the rider.
Generally, in most types of water-skiing, the rider is secured to the surface of the ski device by a binding. The typical configuration of a binding relates to a two piece construction with a portion of material forming the heel piece and a separate portion of material forming the forefoot piece (see U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,036,561; 5,868,594; and 5,947,781). The two portions of material are brought adjacent to each other to form a foot socket, whereby the user slides their foot in the top between the two pieces and into the socket. Ski bindings have undergone many improvements over the years. Due to the potentially extreme torsion forces on the foot, ankle, and lower leg of the skier, it is important for the binding to snugly fit the foot of the skier. One augmentation to the ski binding that has been developed and is still preferred today to increase the stability of the skier's foot and combat these torsion forces is the addition of one or more flaps that wrap around the ankle portion of the binding. Concomitant with this increase in support and stability of the binding is an increase in the difficulty in inserting the skier's foot into the binding. Typically, the heel enclosure and the tongue of the forefoot enclosure extends upwardly and about the ankle. In most conventional bindings, the top of the heel enclosure and tongue of the forefoot enclosure define holes thereon which facilitate the separation of the two. However, the contact between the top of the heel enclosure and the tongue of the forefoot portion can be so tight that it is often necessary for the skier to apply a lubricant in the top of the binding to aid in the insertion of the skier's foot. Maintaining a container of lubricant in the boat can be a messy inconvenience.
There are known an attempts to avoid disadvantages, related to contamination, by means of improvement involves the provision of a reservoir for holding a lubricant that is securely attached or integral to the binding. The lubricant can be stored and ejected out of the reservoir, through a simple pump and duct mechanism, to the site of need on the binding (e.g., see U.S. Pat. No. 6,604,969). However this technical decision does not make away all problems, related to contamination of a rider's feet, a water recreational devices and an environment. Also it does not cut in full the problems related to safety the rider's feet during skiing, because the feet tightly insert in a foot socket and it is very difficult to pull it out when arise a need, especially in case of emergency.